In 1991, the Sega Genesis was at the cutting edge of
videogame technology in America and enjoying strong sales. NEC's Turbografx-16
was a distant second, and the Super Nintendo was yet to be released. Rumors
swirled about various new peripherals and consoles - Genesis and Neo-Geo
CD drives, the Sony Playstation, and a CD drive for the forthcoming Super
Nintendo. Another rumor to circulate in 1991 was that Atari was back with
a new 32-bit console called the Panther that was set to debut against
the Super Nintendo later that year. However, after the Summer CES that
year, Atari announced that the Panther was cancelled so that they could
concentrate on a new machine, the 64-bit Jaguar. Behind the scenes, Atari
had actually been developing both systems at the same time, but the Jaguar
had progressed at such a rate that it made sense to skip the Panther.

Atari was very tight-lipped about its new machine at first, but then
it began sending out press releases announcing the Jaguar with various
technical specifications. Atari said they planned to debut the machine
in 1993, and that there would definitely be a 64-bit RISC based processor
at its core. This was exciting news to gamers, as it would seemingly make
it the most technically advanced machine, well beyond the 16-bit Sega
Genesis and Super Nintendo. Even better, Atari said the price would be
between $100 and $150.

Technically, the Jaguar was impressive. Five processors reside in three
chips, two of them being proprietary (Tom and Jerry) with a third being
a Motorola 68000 coprocessor. The GPU runs at 26.591Mhz and is rated at
26.591 MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second). There is a 64-bit data
bus for communication and two megabytes of fast-page mode DRAM. Development
systems cost between $7,500 and $9,000 and ran on IBM PC or Atari TT030
computers, with art development possible on various other machines.

When Atari finally announced the official launch of the Jaguar, the price
tag was $200 and was bundled with a Cybermorph cartridge and one controller.
However, when it actually hit store shelves the price had climbed to $250.
Even with a higher price tag, sales were brisk. IBM was manufacturing
the system for Atari, and things were looking up. Atari was set to market
the Jaguar with a $3 million advertising budget, a telephone support line,
and promised support from over 20 third party developers. However, retailers
and the media were still skeptical that Atari could deliver quality software
and keep all of its promises.

When the machine actually hit the streets, the reaction was mixed. Some
gamers were excited by the increased power, while some felt that the system
fell short of its promises. Some people claimed that the the Jaguar wasn't
actually a true 64-bit system, that it was simply two 32-bit processors
working in parallel. However, Atari was pressing forward with their advertising
campaign touting its 64-bit power, and an impressive number of third-party
titles had been announced in development. Unfortunately for these developers,
the Jaguar proved very difficult to program for and Atari did not have
sufficient development tools. Many Jaguar games were consequently delayed,
and others were rushed out the door and were less than impressive. Ultimately,
many announced developers simply did not develop any Jaguar titles.

The Jaguar's first game was the system pack-in, Cybermorph.
Although an impressive polygonal game for its time, Cybermorph still received
its share of criticism for design flaws and a weak color palette. The
second title, Trevor
McFur in the Crescent Galaxy, was criticized by the media and even
accused of being a glorified demo. This was followed by Raiden
and Dino
Dudes, which were also poorly received and gamers remarked that they
looked like 16-bit games. Atari's first hit came in the form of Jeff Minter's
Tempest
2000, an update to the classic game that was almost universally applauded
and won several awards. This was followed by Doom,
Wolfenstein
3D, and Alien
vs. Predator, the latter being one of the best selling Jaguar games
ever. Then Atari won several out-of-court settlements with Nintendo and
Sega over patent infringements, totaling around $70 million dollars. Things
were looking better, but the damage may have been done.

Christmas of 1994 was very important to Atari, but unfortunately it was
a weak holiday season for videogames in general. Lackluster titles such
as Checkered
Flag, Kasumi
Ninja, and Club
Drive didn't help. The Sega Saturn was lurking on the horizon, and
gamers seemed content to spend money on their Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo
systems instead of buying a Jaguar. In late 1995, the Sega Saturn and
Sony Playstation were released in the U.S., and fans quickly forgot about
Atari's machine. Even though it claimed to be superior in processing power
(64-bit vs. 32-bit), that now seemed either inaccurate or irrelevant given
the demonstrations by Sony and Sega's new consoles. Atari wasn't giving
up however, and they announced the release of their CD-ROM
attachment, Pro
Controller, and some marquee titles like Primal
Rage and NBA
Jam Tournament Edition.

After the Christmas 1995 shopping season, it was apparent that Atari
would not be able to compete. Sony's Playstation was the clear winner,
and Atari admitted it had sold only $3 million worth of Jaguar merchandise
in the last quarter of 1995. Although Atari stated it would continue to
support the Jaguar, they began laying off staff and moved to smaller accommodations.
Then Atari announced that they would be merging with hardware manufacturer
JTS and discontinuing all support of the Jaguar. In early 1996, they released
the last Jaguar title, Fight
For Life, and almost all remaining Atari employees were laid off.

Before the collapse, Atari had actually been developing the Jaguar II
and even assembled some prototypes. It was going to be fully backwards
compatible with the Jaguar, and the processing power was said to be two
to three times that of the Sony Playstation. There were to be seven processors
on three chips, with the fastest processor running at 53Mhz. Unfortunately,
the Jaguar II never made it beyond the prototype stage so we'll never
know what it might have been capable of.

Time Warner had also licensed the Jaguar architecture for the arcades,
where it was known as the "CoJag". These systems were basically
Jaguar chipsets with extra memory and some other enhancements, and resulted
in the arcade games Area
51, Maximum Force,
and an unreleased puzzle game called Freeze.
Stock Jaguars were also used as controllers for several kiddie ride games
such as Skycopter II, Speedster
II, and Spaceguy. These kiddie rides were going to be deployed outside
of stores such as K-Mart, various supermarkets, and Chuck E. Cheese.